Natural wine is often described as a return to tradition. But is it?
Producers of natural wine consistently emphasize that terroir is central. At the same time, they argue that organic or biodynamic farming is necessary to express terroir, often framing this approach as a return to older practices. Yet the category of natural wine itself is far from self-evident, and the absence of a formal definition has contributed to persistent confusion.
Closer examination, however, shows that both terroir and organic farming, as they are understood today, are modern formations. Rather than relying on romantic explanations, it is more useful to ask when—and under what historical and ideological conditions—the concept of natural wine emerged.
In recent years, producers working within the natural-wine movement have increasingly sought to clarify their own standards. Associations have established voluntary charters, defined production rules, and incorporated explicit ethical and environmental commitments into their requirements. In this context, the most compelling natural wines are shaped by clearly defined production standards and articulated commitments.
This article examines natural wine as a historical and institutional development instead of as a stylistic category, considering how these concepts are structured within contemporary production and how they shape broader approaches to evaluating wine.
“Natural wine must express terroir.”
Every producer interviewed for this article shares this belief. Beka Gotsadze and Zurab Mgvdliashvili, two of the founders of the Georgian Natural Wine Association, emphasize that natural wine must be both small-scale and expressive of terroir. The Loire winemaker Nicolas Joly founded Return to Terroir in 2001, now an international network of 175 producers across 13 countries, aiming to maximize vineyard potential through organic and biodynamic farming. At a 2024 VDP (Verband Deutscher Prädikatsweingüter) seminar titled “Terroir vs. Natural,” producers including Odinstal, Clemens Busch, Beurer, and Schätzel expressed a consistent view: low intervention is necessary, but the vineyard is where terroir resides.
Despite this apparent clarity, terroir is not a timeless or self-evident concept. Rather, it has been historically constructed.
Terroir refers to the environmental conditions surrounding a vineyard—rainfall, sunlight, soil, topography, and biodiversity—and, in some cases, to inherited practices. Yet earlier uses of the term often carried negative connotations. Louis Liger, writing in 1715, described goût de terroir as an unpleasant taste derived from the soil. Denis Morelot used the term similarly in his 19th-century study of Burgundy.
A decisive shift occurred in the mid-20th century. As the professor Olivier Jacquet has shown, between the 1940s and 1960s, sensory evaluation became institutionalized within the AOC system. In 1974, organoleptic approval (dégustation d’agrément) was made mandatory, formalizing typicité—the requirement that wines express recognizable regional character while remaining technically sound. Over time, AOC status, typicité, and terroir became aligned, reinforcing the principle that the expression of place presupposes the exclusion of defects.
At the same time, terroir was reconfigured as a marker of authenticity and identity. In the context of increasing global competition, it provided a framework through which wines could be distinguished not only by grape variety or technique, but also by origin and cultural specificity. By the late 20th century, descriptors such as flint, gunstone, and, later, mineral had become part of the tasting lexicon, reflecting a shift in how sensory perception was linked to geology.
In the 21st century, the concept has expanded further to include microbial life. Practices such as composting and organic soil management emphasize biodiversity and microbial activity, integrating these into the understanding of terroir. Indigenous yeast fermentation reflects this expanded view, too, recognizing that microbial populations in the vineyard and cellar shape the wine.
Considered historically, terroir emerges not as a static inheritance but as a modern framework, constructed through systems of classification, evaluation, and evolving scientific understanding.
Within natural-wine discourse, this has a clear implication. If terroir is the objective, then low intervention is not an end in itself but a means of enabling the expression of place. Following this argument, technical soundness is not opposed to natural wine but becomes a prerequisite for the articulation of terroir.
François Blanchard, a Loire Valley winemaker who belongs to Les S.A.I.N.S., an association of natural-wine producers, has remarked that organic farming was how everyone farmed two to three centuries ago. Similarly, Jérôme Moitry, the owner of Château Climens, a biodynamic estate producing natural wine within the Vin Méthode Nature framework, has expressed a desire to recover the biodiversity associated with earlier forms of polyculture in Barsac. Such statements suggest that organic and biodynamic viticulture represent a return to a premodern agricultural equilibrium. More broadly, these producers argue that organic or biodynamic farming is necessary to express terroir and frame it as a return to tradition.
But what, precisely, is this “past” to which natural-wine producers refer? Which form of agriculture—and which type of farmer—serves as the implicit model?
European agriculture prior to the emergence of conventional farming was far from uniform. In the medieval open-field system, land was managed collectively at the village level. Over time, practices diverged. In England, independent smallholders—yeoman farmers—engaged in experimentation that contributed to agricultural innovation. In France, the rise of the laboureurs, or rural elites supplying urban markets, marked a shift toward larger-scale, market-oriented production. This period already shows a shift toward more systematized, output-oriented agriculture, rather than a stable or uniform “traditional” model.
The transition to conventional farming represents the next critical stage. Its development rested on several technological pillars: the use of chemical fertilizers, synthetic pesticides and herbicides, and increasing mechanization and energy inputs, and the introduction of hybrid crop varieties. In viticulture, one of the most influential developments associated with conventional agriculture is reflected in the adoption of mechanization, particularly mechanical harvesting. Research in this area began at UC Davis in the 1950s, and by the late 1960s mechanical harvesters were being commercially adopted.
These transformations constituted a profound shift in agricultural practice and came to be described as the Green Revolution, significantly increasing productivity and contributing to the reduction of global hunger. At the same time, they generated substantial environmental consequences. The overuse of nitrogen and phosphorus led to eutrophication, while persistent chemicals, such as DDT, caused widespread ecological damage. Rachel Carson’s 1962 book Silent Spring brought attention to these effects, which are now understood as environmental externalities.
Organic farming originated in the early 20th century. But from the 1970s onward—when the environmental consequences of conventional agriculture became increasingly visible—it began to be formalized and expanded as an institutionalized response to these developments. It represents a reassessment of chemical inputs and their environmental impact, rather than a wholesale rejection of modernity.
Mechanization and certain forms of technological development remain compatible with organic systems. Contemporary regulations reflect this understanding; for example, EU descriptions of organic farming characterize it as a modern, environmentally conscious agricultural system that developed in response to the Green Revolution. Taken together, this indicates that organic farming is not a simple continuation of premodern practice but a structured response to modern agricultural systems.
Two axes are now visible: terroir and organic farming. Within producer frameworks, these are not merely abstract principles but are translated into rules, with terroir realized through requirements around organic farming and low-intervention practices.
Yet, alongside terroir and organic farming, a third axis begins to emerge: values, ethics, and lifestyle commitments. This becomes clearer when comparing how different producer organizations define and organize natural wine.
One of the most significant institutional initiatives is Vin Méthode Nature, an association founded in France in 2019. Its production standards have been officially recognized by the DGCCRF (Direction générale de la concurrence, de la consommation et de la répression des fraudes), the French authority responsible for consumer protection and market regulation.
The charter’s principal requirements include:
The association’s reach has extended beyond small-scale artisanal producers, as demonstrated by the classified growth Château Climens, in Barsac, which is producing dry white wines within the guidelines of Vin Méthode Nature. Moitry emphasizes, “Input during winemaking is makeup, not natural.”
At Château Climens, biodynamic preparations, including sorrel, rosemary, and horsetail, are sourced from within a three-kilometer (1.9-mile) radius. According to Moitry, Barsac was historically characterized by polyculture that supported greater biodiversity, but, because the soils were not particularly fertile, land use gradually shifted toward viticulture. The estate’s current approach seeks to reintroduce elements of biodiversity.
The Vin Méthode Nature charter has expanded to include explicit social and ethical provisions. Articles 15 and 16 prohibit discrimination, require fair labor practices, and mandate contributions to environmental protection and improvement. Through these elements, Vin Méthode Nature surpasses a purely technical definition of natural wine production and embeds values and ethical commitments within its structure.
In Italy, ViniVeri has made a comparable attempt to formalize natural wine production. The association has established a set of production standards, though its approach differs from that of Vin Méthode Nature in several respects.
Key provisions include:
Unlike Vin Méthode Nature, ViniVeri does not require formal organic certification, though many of its principles overlap with organic viticulture, including the exclusion of herbicides and chemical fertilizers. Compared with the French standard, fermentation temperature control is more tightly restricted, while permitted SO₂ levels are somewhat higher—at levels that remain within conventional modern winemaking norms. These provisions suggest that ViniVeri retains a degree of nostalgic orientation toward what is perceived as historically natural winemaking.
This is also reflected by individual ViniVeri producers, such as La Castellada, in Friuli. The owner Nicolò Bensa describes himself as a traditional, not natural, winemaker. He argues that once grapes are transformed through human intervention, wine can no longer be considered strictly natural. The notion of tradition is not straightforward, however. Bensa’s work does not represent an unbroken continuity: his family’s estate was established after his father returned from Switzerland, making it closer to a modern reentry than a long-standing lineage. Here, what is framed as tradition involves reinterpretation and selective reconstruction.
MW Isabelle Legeron, a prominent advocate of natural wine, has proposed a definition of natural wine production broadly aligned with the standards of Vin Méthode Nature and ViniVeri. Its tenets include:
A notable example of a producer organization with even stricter standards for natural wine production is Les S.A.I.N.S., a French association founded in 2012. Its charter requires the following:
Les S.A.I.N.S. does not require organic certification, reflecting a critique articulated by Catherine Vergé, a founding member of the association and a winemaker in the Mâconnais, who believes the certification fails to sufficiently address the winemaking process. Instead, the charter extends its scope across the entire production chain, from vineyard to cellar, effectively requiring an estate-based model of production.
Among the SO₂-free natural wines the author has tasted, those produced by Jean-Marc Tard, based in the Loire Valley, stand out as particularly compelling. His approach aligns closely with the principles associated with Les S.A.I.N.S., demonstrating that, even under strict constraints, wines can remain fresh, expressive, and vividly aromatic, with floral and fruit-driven characteristics derived directly from the grapes.
Another distinguishing aspect of the Les S.A.I.N.S. charter is its explicit codification of the producer’s ethical stance. Members are expected to demonstrate social responsibility, friendliness toward others, and personal honesty. Here, the producer’s conduct is part of the definition of natural wine.
Like Les S.A.I.N.S., the Natural Wine Association (NWA), founded in Georgia in 2017, restricts membership to estate-based producers. Requirements include:
The cofounder Gotsadze has stated that natural wine should be produced in small quantities and express terroir—an outlook clearly influenced by French natural-wine discourse.
NWA’s founding year is revealing. Although Georgia is often described as the cradle of wine, its winemaking tradition was disrupted during the Soviet period (1921–1991), when private enterprise was abolished and production industrialized. Most Georgian winemakers belong to a new generation.
Niko Chochishvili, the owner and winemaker of Kapistoni Winery, notes that Georgia’s natural-wine framework was largely imported from Europe. Given this rupture and the association’s recent formation, this interpretation is well supported. The emphasis on an estate-based model can be read as a counter to the collectivized system, reasserting individual agency and embedding elements of philosophy and ways of life within the practice of natural-wine production.
Thus, even in one of the world’s oldest wine-producing regions, natural wine is a relatively recent development.
Today, sustainability and regeneration—encompassing economic autonomy, labor conditions, ethical norms, fair trade, and carbon footprints—are increasingly incorporated into the practices of natural wine producers. As producer frameworks continue to expand, natural wine remains a developing category rather than a fixed stylistic model. While its evolution may at times involve romantic sentiment or marketing rhetoric, it is grounded in modern agricultural concepts.
Against this background, natural wine is structured not only by terroir and organic farming but also by a third element: values, ethical commitments, conceptions of authenticity, and orientations toward tradition. Across producer associations, these three components are combined in different configurations, shaping both production and meaning.
Understanding natural wine in these terms clarifies its broader significance. The concepts it foregrounds—such as the internalization of environmental and social costs, the explicit articulation of producers’ ethical positions, and low-intervention practices—are not confined to natural wine itself but are increasingly shaping other categories of wine.
This dynamic is enabled by both the absence of a formal definition and the persistent narrative of a “return to tradition.” The former creates structural openness, making natural wine less constrained than legally defined wine categories, where innovation is limited by codified rules. The latter—though historically unstable—provides an accessible entry point that sustains engagement and enables experimentation, allowing diverse interpretations and practices to coexist within the category.
Each bottle of natural wine—integrating modern agronomy, enology, economics, and even ideology—points toward possible futures for the wine industry. Natural wine can be understood as one of the most recent wine categories developed, and as a framework from which contemporary environmental and ethical movements are beginning to expand across the wider wine industry.
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Thanks for putting all of these in one article.